censures "the principles laid down and illustrated by Walker," as "so
elaborate and so verbose as to be wearisome to the scholar and useless to
the child;" and yet declares them to be, "for the most part, the true rules
of pronunciation, according to the analogy of the language."--_Mulkey's
Preface_, p. 3. It professes to be an abridgement and simplification of
those principles, especially adapted to the wants and capacities of
children; and, at the same time, imposes upon the memory of the young
learner twenty-nine rules for syllabication, similar to that which I have
quoted above; whereas Walker himself, with all his verbosity, expressly
declares it "_absurd_," to offer more than one or two, and those of the
very simplest character. It is to be observed that the author teaches
nothing but the elements of reading; nothing but the sounds of letters and
syllables; nothing but a few simple fractions of the great science of
grammar: and, for this purpose, he would conduct the learner through the
following particulars, and have him remember them all: 1. _Fifteen
distinctions_ respecting the "classification and organic formation of the
letters." 2. _Sixty-three rules_ for "the sounds of the vowels, according
to their relative positions." 3. _Sixty-four explanations_ of "the
different sounds of the diphthongs." 4. _Eighty-nine rules_ for "the sounds
of the consonants, according to position." 5. _Twenty-three heads_,
embracing a hundred and fifty-six principles of accent. 6. _Twenty-nine_
"_rules_ for dividing words into syllables." 7. _Thirty-three "additional
principles;"_ which are thrown together promiscuously, because he could not
class them. 8. _Fifty-two pages_ of "irregular Words," forming particular
exceptions to the foregoing rules. 9. _Twenty-eight pages_ of notes
extracted from Walker's Dictionary, and very prettily called "The Beauties
of Walker." All this is Walker simplified for children!

OBS. 4.--Such is a brief sketch of Mulkey's system of orthoepy; a work in
which "he claims to have devised what has heretofore been a
_desideratum_--a mode by which children in our common schools may be taught
_the rules_ for the pronunciation of their mother tongue."--_Preface_, p.
4. The faults of the book are so exceedingly numerous, that to point them
out, would be more toil, than to write an accurate volume of twice the
size. And is it possible, that a system like this could find patronage in
the metropolis of New England